REDOING THE STUDIO THANKS TO MY ANCIENT COMPUTER EXPIRING
Posted on October 4, 2018
I buy a new vehicle about every 13-16 years, and I run my computers to the ground. Basically, big purchases intimidate me. I get easily overwhelmed when I buy new technology, which explains my iPhone 5 and my woefully ancient iPad.
My tech anxiety always ends up being worse than what actually happens. I imagine incompatibility and hardships ahead of any technological change in our household. Upgrading our wi-fi a year ago had been a nightmare in my head, but had been super easy in reality.
Which brings me to my newest technology panic session.
My studio computer died.
I could still access my files and do word processing, but it stopped letting me access the Internet last week. It was a 2007 Dell running Vista and had been with me for all of my writing career. The feel of the keys was something I found infinitely comfortable – I see you sticky K. I'd even come to terms with its tortoise-like sluggishness, slow and steady wins the race, after all. Even its noisy fan had been a reassuring sound. Can you tell I get attached to things?
So I had to break down and consider getting a new one. With money tight, it would have to be affordable and under $500.
Thankfully, I was able to transfer all my documents to a thumb drive. Since the 2007 device would still be able to run Photoshop, I decided to keep it, demoting it to the small desk. Doesn't it look so exiled?
I went out and bought a new, souped-up computer for a reasonable price along with a very affordable and much larger monitor. With my eyesight not as acute as it use to be, I really needed a bigger field of view.
Now I fully expected to be overwhelmed with setting it up, but it proved very easy. I built the monitor and then connected it to the tower. At first, it wouldn't register the hdmi connection. I felt a wave of panic at the notion that I'd bought a defective component, but that went away when I pushed the cable in a little harder and it linked to the tower.
I then went through the initial setup with surprising speed. After designating Google as my web browser, I put my key bookmarks back in and then downloaded my Norton 360 program. All went smoothly. I opted to reuse my old speakers. In addition, I plugged in my old printer, and the computer prepped it for use. No hiccups or electronic disasters. I was feeling giddy.
Finally, I reinstalled Microsoft Office 2007. While I could've sprung for the 2016 version, using this older version saved me money and I was already very comfortable with its idiosyncrasies.
I grabbed my thumb drive and loaded my old files, determined to not have the files be as cluttered as my previous computer. We'll see how that goes.
All told, it took me about an hour and I now have a workstation that should go another decade or more for me.
I guess I better keep a close eye on my phone. I suspect it will be the next to go. Of course, the fridge is sounding mighty rickety these days, too.
As far as Office, OpenOffice does pretty much everything that MicrosoftOffice does. It doesn't have the ribbon display that Microsoft does, but I consider that a plus. The downside is some of the keyboard shortcuts are different so switching between the home and work computers becomes awkward. The zero dollar price tag is a comfort though.